


Pleasure to Meet You

by rachel614 (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, uni au-canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 20:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17251226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/rachel614
Summary: He couldn’t remember what wonder felt like, until he looked at her.--------------------------Sherlock Holmes met Molly Hooper in university, and he never forgot her.





	Pleasure to Meet You

**Author's Note:**

> Mildly AU in that Sherlock and Molly met in uni, and Sherlock never finished his degree. Otherwise, canon-compliant.  
> My first take on a post TFP, so you'll have to forgive the shameless fluff. I couldn't bring my self to put them through the wringer-this time around, anyway ;)

He remembers her.

She’d been the bright one in their chem class. He’d been strung out even then, the stimulants and the consequent slowing of his higher functions the only thing making the tedium of classes bearable.  
That, and watching Molly Hooper.  
Watching her question, challenge the professor. Perform experiments with meticulous care. Analyze the results with precise logic. Explore the nature of the world around them, with an obvious fascination and even wonder.

He couldn’t remember what wonder felt like, until he looked at her.

That year long chemistry class shone out like a gem in the pig's trough of tedium and drug-related filth. The following year they shared no classes−a statistical probability, despite their shared interests in chemistry and forensics, considering the size of the student body. He was not disappointed, of course. But it was hardly a month into the term before he dropped out of uni, and into the streets. Another three years before he met Lestrade during a drug bust, and deduced and solved his latest case from the state of his coat. Another four years in which he transformed from a junky on the fast path to suicide to Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. Rehab, physical training, seven years, a haircut, and a nice coat−he was unrecognizable.  
So he supposes he should not have been surprised when she doesn’t recognize him.

Xxx

“Sherlock, I’m telling you now. The new pathologist at Bart’s is a star recruitment. She had a dozen offers in other hospitals, and if you screw with her even your brother won’t be able to get you back in.” Sherlock seriously doubts this. Still, it won’t do to push Lestrade. The detective is still reluctant to call in Sherlock, and he didn’t miss the signs when Sherlock had used last week. It won’t be long−he estimates a month or two−before Lestrade will insist that he acquire a flatmate to keep him in check.  
Ignoring the detective, Sherlock throws open both doors to the path lab. He makes it five steps in before coming to a halt, staring.

It’s her. She’d looked up at the sound of his entrance, her jaw dropping as she takes him in. Automatically, he casts a glance over her. Dowdy clothing, cat hairs, back pains from wearing a pair of heels Saturday night for the first time in a year, elevated pulse, dilated eyes. He feels a smirk spread across his face.  
After the briefest of moments, she steps forward, offering a hand.  
“Molly. Molly Hooper.” He blinks, looking at her. Reevaluates.  
“Sherlock Holmes,” he hears himself say. “Pleasure to meet you.”

Xxx

Her examination is brief, and when she finished a cold silence grows between them, spreading to fill the ambulance.  
“Well?” He asks, as though nothing were wrong.  
“You’re dying.” He looks at her expressionless face and opens his mouth to retaliate.  
“I know,” he says instead, thinking of three years on bug-ridden mattresses, spiraling closer and closer to an empty choice.  
_Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it._  
“Sherlock… this isn’t the first time you’ve been this close, isn’t it.”  
“No,” he says, and the word is like ashes in his mouth.  
“You were in my chem class?” She looks at him. Even now−more trashed than he’d ever been in uni−she still isn’t sure. Cannot reconcile the man she knows now with the boy she shared a class with, so many years ago.  
“I remember you,” he tells her, and for the first time the ghost of a smile crosses her face.  
“What a horrifying thought.”

A thousand objections rise up, choking him to silence.  
Unable to overturn six years of casual insults and degradations, he gives her the only gift he can: a promise, an utterly worthless promise.  
“This is the last time,” he vows. She looks at him in disbelief. “It’s a plan. Soon… I’ll stop. Soon.”  
“Sherlock…”  
“My life is not my own,” he says simply. She looks at him again, and the sorrow in her eyes burns him. She doesn’t understand, doesn’t know why he is doing this−but he sees that she believes him. She trusts him.  
“What should I tell John?” she asks.  
“That I’m dying.”

Xxx

“Was it this bad the first time?” Her hand stroked his back as the latest fit of dry heaving passes. At any other time her touch, her presence in his space would be unbearable. Just now he craves it, a human connection anchoring him to this world.  
“No,” he says hoarsely. “Worse.” Her hand stills, then resumes its path along his spine.  
“You were that sick?” He doesn’t respond for a long time.  
“I had less reason to live.”

Xxx

“Molly. Let me in.” He has a key, still. But entering now, without her permission, would be intolerable.  
“Go away.”  
It’s been six weeks since Sherrinford. Six weeks since his life was torn apart, and put back together into a new and unfamiliar configuration. He no longer feels like he knows himself.  
Molly knows what happened. He knows that John told her. He also knows that she is still angry with him, not least because he hadn’t told her himself.  
He sits down, back against her door, and closes his eyes. He should never have come, but he can’t bear to leave.

He nearly falls when the door opens suddenly. She steps outside, and closing the door, sits next to him.  
“I’m sorry,” she says at last. “I know this isn’t easy.”  
“For either of us,” he acknowledges. She huffs a small laugh.  
“I missed you, you know.” He thinks of six weeks of silence. Two years abroad. Seven years of emptiness.  
He’s rewarded by a tiny smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, and crinkling her eyes.  
“I missed you too,” she says softly.  
I love you, he thinks, and closes his eyes against his cowardice.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Startled, he jerks his head up, staring at her. She looks away, biting her lip. “I know from John, but−well, I want to hear it from you.”  
He doesn’t want to do this, doesn’t want to relive the memories. But Molly has never asked much of him, and _she is owed._  
“I have a sister,” he begins, and then the words come pouring out. It’s not a neat, orderly story, like his presentation of a case. It’s all the hurt and rage and shame that he tells her, and by the end she is weeping.  
“Molly,” he says, and his voice is suddenly ragged. “I am so very sorry. For everything.”

She looks at him. Dries her eyes. Smiles tremulously.  
“I forgive you,” she says, and something in him loosens. The words come easily, surprising him.  
“I think I loved you the first time I saw you smile. You’d just electrolyzed water, and you were so pleased by such a simple thing. You were the first beautiful thing I’d seen in years.”  
She’s staring at him, mouth agape. He swallows, and _now_ continuing is the hardest thing he’s ever done. “I’ve been a fool for a long time, Molly, and I’ve never deserved you, but if you’ll have me− if you’ll for-”  
She stops him, her finger laid across his lips.  
“You love me?” He nods, still silenced by her touch. She tilts her head, considering this.  
“You’ve always loved me.” He nods again, although it’s not a question this time.  
“Well. Okay, then,” she says, and her hand drops and she smiles and his breath catches because it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. _She’s_ the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.  
“I love you,” he breathes, looking at her, and her smile widens.


End file.
